On 11/09/2007, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > No, you are thinking in the present, where there can be only one copy of a > > > brain. When technology for uploading exists, you have a 100% chance of > > > becoming the original and a 100% chance of becoming the copy. > > > > It's the same in no collapse interpretations of quantum mechanics. > > There is a 100% chance that a copy of you will see the atom decay and > > a 100% chance that a copy of you will not see the atom decay. However, > > experiment shows that there is only a 50% chance of seeing the atom > > decay, because the multiple copies of you don't share their > > experiences. The MWI gives the same probabilistic results as the CI > > for any observer. > > The analogy to the multi-universe view of quantum mechanics is not valid. In > the multi-universe view, there are two parallel universes both before and > after the split, and they do not communicate at any time. When you copy a > brain, there is one copy before and two afterwards. Those two brains can then > communicate with each other.
I think the usual explanation is that the "split" doubles the number of universes and the number of copies of a brain. It wouldn't make any difference if tomorrow we discovered a method of communicating with the parallel universes: you would see the other copies of you who have or haven't observed the atom decay but subjectively you still have a 50% chance of finding yourself in one or other situation if you can only have the experiences of one entity at a time. > The multi-universe view cannot be tested. The evidence in its favor is > Occam's Razor (or its formal equivalent, AIXI, assuming the universe is a > computation). The important point for this argument is just that the multiverse idea cannot be tested. Whether there is one or many universes in which all outcomes occur, the probabilities work out the same. > The view that you express is that when a brain is copied, one copy becomes > human with subjective experience and the other becomes a p-zombie, but we > don't know which one. The evidence in favor of this view is: That's not what I meant at all, if I gave that impression. Both copies are conscious and both copies have equal claim to being a continuation of the original, but each copy can only experience being one person at a time. Given this, the effect is of ending up one or other copy with equal probability, the same as if only one or other copy were created. > - Human belief in consciousness and subjective experience is universal and > accepted without question. Any belief programmed into the brain through > natural selection must be true in any logical system that the human mind can > comprehend. > > - Out of 6 billion humans, no two have the same memory. Therefore by > induction, it is impossible to copy consciousness. > > (I hope that you can see the flaws in this evidence). > > This view also cannot be tested, because there is no test to distinguish a > conscious human from a p-zombie. Unlike the multi-universe view where a > different copy becomes conscious in each universe, the two universes would > continue to remain identical. I think it's unlikely that p-zombies are physically possible (although they are logically possible). I don't see any problem with having multiple copies of a given consciousness. I don't see any problem with testing for consciousness, since we all perform the test on ourselves every waking moment; it's just that there are technical difficulties performing a direct test on someone else. -- Stathis Papaioannou ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=4007604&id_secret=40425827-752d41
